Friday, April 19, 2013

* Room 237, like a collapsing wormhole of internet crazy, a tape loop of nonsense about Stanley Kubrick's The Shining.

* To the Wonder, the latest from Terrence Malick is beautiful and emotionally provocative.

* Indie & Arthouse for the Oregonian, 4/19/13: Two recent French films, Women on the Sixth Floor and Tomboy, and two 1950s classics, The Little Fugitive and Imitation of Life.UPDATED TO CRITERION CONFESSIONS...
A Pierre Etaix survey! All but one of his films so far, as they are being shown at the NW Film Center.

Yes, you read that right. We're wrapping up the first It Girl and the Atomics series with #12. There were a number of factors contributing to the decision, but it was the right one to make and the right time to do it. Hopefully the twelve issues we did will stand strong as a complete series whether I ever make it back to do more or not. (I have a few ideas for stories, but it will all be a matter of timing.) I wrote #12 special to cap off everything that had come before, which is why I corralled all the artists from the series to give it one more go.

I am really proud of how It Girl and the Atomics turned out. I am proud of shipping a full year of monthly comics on time and not just maintaining the quality, but I'd like to think improving issue to issue. As a writer, I was blessed to work with some exceptional people. Mike Norton, Chynna Clugston Flores, and Natalie Nourigat--you can't ask for a better line-up of artists than that. And Allen Passalaqua, Crank!, and the Allreds, the foundation every issue was built on.

Image Comics have also been awesome and supportive and continue to be so. Expect more collaborations between myself and Image in the future. This door is closed, but we're opening up a couple of windows.

The funny thing is, this all got decided just as I felt the book took a real upswing in terms of critical and reader reaction. We got much love all along, and for that I am grateful, and to those who threw so many kind words our way, you made me very happy. Special mention to Multiversity, who wrote a real nice piece this morning when they found out about our forthcoming conclusion.

Anyway, it's not as if it's done yet. It Girl and the Atomics #9 is going to be in stores this coming Wednesday, and we're just about to put #10 to bed. The journey has a few more miles to go before we get there, so stick around!

Thursday, April 11, 2013

* Trance, wherein Danny Boyle uses Rosario Dawson's private parts to try to hypnotize you into believing that he's not just pulling the same old bullshit.

* Indie and Art house for the Oregonian: the environmental documentary Trashed, featuring the very serious face of Jeremy Irons; Elliott Gould and Christopher Plummer in weird and grisly The Silent Partner; and, hey, another environmental disaster in the schlocky 100 Degress Below Zero.

Friday, April 05, 2013

I'd be remiss if I began my weekly round-up of film reviews I've written without noting the passing of legendary film critic Roger Ebert. A lot of my history as a movie lover can be traced back to watching Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel talk about film on their weekly television show. I discovered them as a preteen, and always looked forward to hearing about films I would not otherwise even know existed. Much of what they championed never came to my town, but that didn't mean I wouldn't find those films years later. I know my introduction to David Mamet, David Lynch, Robert Altman, the Coen Bros., Steven Soderbergh, Louis Malle, the Up series, Hoop Dreams, and so many others came from watching these two gentlemen argue and enthuse about movies that touched them. I can't help but smile when I remember the infamous Benji the Hunted argument in 1987. That's how passionate they were. Even Benji was worth fighting over.

In recent years, Ebert faced his health issues with an unwavering dignity, becoming more prolific in his writing, tackling subjects beyond the moviehouse with the same incisive thinking that made his reviews so special. It's sad to see him go, since he clearly was not yet done with everything he wanted to do, but he leaves us with so much to remember, we should all be so lucky as to earn the equivalent of the tiniest fraction of his legacy by the time we go.

Thanks, sir. You will be missed, but you'll never be gone.

THIS WEEK IN THEATERS...
* The Place Beyond the Pines, an unwieldy family story from the director of Blue Valentine. Are literary pretensions and a strong cast enough to overcome a director's indulgences?

* And over at The Oregonian, two festivals come to town: the Polyester Pulp series of 1970s crime films and the disjointed Beer and Music Fest. Plus, Thale, a creepy Scandinavian folk tale turned into a creepy modern movie.

UPDATED TO CRITERION CONFESSIONS...
* The Game, David Fincher's mind-bender from the late 1990s.THIS WEEK IN BD/DVD REVEWS...
* The Great Magician, a recent period piece set in 1930s China, with Tony Leung as an illusionist. The movie wants to be old-style entertainment, but it's not much fun.

* Hemingway & Gellhorn, literary legacies desecrated, good actors embarrassing themselves, and a myriad of other reasons why this is one of the worst movies I've seen in a long time.

* On Approval, a witty British comedy from 1944, directed by and starring Clive Brook.

* The Song of Bernadette, a dismal religious picture from the 1940s, starring Jennifer Jones as the girl who sees visions.

* The Sun Shines Bright, John Ford's friendly portrait of a Kentucky judge and his community ca. 1905. If you can look past some of the troublesome racial elements, the film actually has a surprising message of unity.

Hey, look! I got Photoshop and put you in a photo with your favorite writer!

My confession...

Author of prose novels and comic books like Cut My Hair, It Girl & the Atomics, You Have Killed Me, and 12 Reasons Why I Love Her. Jamie's most recent novel is the serialized book Bobby Pins and Mary Janes, and his most recent graphic novels are the sci-fi romance A Boy and a Girl with Natalie Nourigat; Madame Frankenstein with Megan Levens; and the weird crime comic Archer Coe & the Thousand Natural Shocks with Dan Christensen. He also co-created Lady Killer with Joëlle Jones.